Burning The Midnight Oil
by Gibbsgirl
Summary: Tony is working late again... Complete


**Title:** Burning The Midnight Oil  
**Author:** Gibbsgirl  
**Rating:** K  
**Disclaimer:** Still not mine... and too broke to be sued...  
**Author's Note:** Written for the LiveJournal ncisflashfic community's Midnight Challenge. Story idea from the worlds greatest partner, Mac. Thanks, twin, I hope I did it justice...

* * *

Tony stretched as he noted the time on his computer. Midnight. He closed the file folder in front of him with a small, satisfied smile and turned to the stack on his right. He picked up the folder on top and looked over the next case. Another stalking victim. He shook his head as he read over the details. He glanced at the stack and sighed. Too many pretty, young women with animals tracking their every move. Too many cases left unsolved or ignored for lack of evidence.

Petty Officer Second Tracey Taylor had reported being followed by a man on several occasions. There had also been a break-in at her apartment, although she couldn't find anything missing.

The suspect, a Morgan Desmond, had an alibi for the night of the break-in, but it was weak. He didn't seem to have any other connection to PO Taylor, citing similar shaky alibis for the times when the woman claimed to have been followed. The case looked to be another one that threatened to fall through the cracks for lack of hard evidence.

Tony studied the photograph of the victim. Dark blonde hair with deep green eyes, a slightly crooked nose and full lips, she seemed familiar to him. He closed his eyes and let his thoughts drift. It wasn't long before he latched on to a face and a name. Annie McLeod.

He'd been with the Peoria PD when he met Annie. She first came to the police, claiming someone was stalking her. The evidence was virtually non-existent, the recommended restraining order nearly worthless. He remembered seeing her only once in the station house, close to hysterical, pleading for the police to do something. She was certain her stalker had been in her home more than once, though she had no proof and nothing was missing.

The next time he saw her he'd been assigned to solve her murder. It wasn't difficult, they had a suspect. Annie had left them as much evidence against her stalker as she could and Tony had easily found the rest. The case was as close to open and shut as he'd ever seen. Unfortunately for Annie, it had cost her her life to see that justice was done. It sickened him that he was unable to help her while she was alive, that his investigator's skills were only useful once she was a corpse. After that, he took an interest in as many of the open cases as he could, often to his detriment at the department.

_"DiNozzo, don't you know when to mind your own business?"_ was a comment he'd heard more times than he could count. Especially when he found evidence to help solve those cases, much to the chagrin or outright embarrassment of the detectives on the cases.

It was the reason he never lasted long anywhere. He was too good to fire, too much of a pain-in-the-ass to keep. So he was _encouraged_ to leave. Told he was moving up in the world. As if he was too stupid to know he was being shoved off on someone else to deal with.

But he never gave up. He hated seeing dead bodies when there should have been something to help them while they lived. Children and young women haunted him the most. And while there seemed to be any number of people outraged about the children, willing to help them in their plight before they became murder victims, he found few who cared about the young women. The stalker victims, the ones who fell through the cracks. The ones like Annie.

He blinked away the memories and looked down at the file in front of him. PO Taylor looked back from her service photograph. "I won't run from him," her eyes seemed to say.

_No_, he thought. _You'll fight just like Annie did. Well, I won't let you down, Petty Officer._

Tony started scouring the system for Morgan Desmond. Unfortunately Desmond seemed to be squeaky clean.

"If it looks too good to be true, it probably is," he muttered. He read through Desmond's alibi statement one more time and then started to get an idea.

"Maybe your alibi is indeed the truth, old boy. Let's just see what your friends' cars were doing on the nights in question, shall we?"

As the requests churned through the system, Tony reached for his notepad. Surprised to find there was only one sheet left on it, he automatically fished through his desk drawer for another, only to find there were no more. Sighing, he walked over to McGee's desk, intent on raiding what was surely a well-stocked supply.

He tugged on the drawer, then stared at the locked desk in disbelief. "Only McGee would lock his desk. What does he think I'm gonna do, steal his stuff?" He looked over at Gibbs' desk in trepidation. He thought about trying to raid one of the other teams' desks, but the last time he did that, there were countless memos about office theft. You'd think he'd stolen the Hope Diamond, not a couple of pens! Biting the inside of his cheek, he approached Gibbs' desk as if it were wired to blow. Slowly he opened the drawer.

Sitting atop a stack of notepads and next to a box of pens was a large chocolate bar. And not just any chocolate bar, but a Snickers, his favorite. With a sticky note on it.

_DiNozzo.  
Don't work too late.  
_

Damn. Didn't it just figure that nothing escaped Gibbs' notice? He took the chocolate bar, the notepad, and a pen just because. As he sat back down at his desk he was just in time to see that his requests had finished. With a smug smile, he wrote down the parking tickets that Desmond's friends' cars had accrued. Coincidentally, they all happened to be during the times that Petty Officer Taylor claimed to have been followed. The parking tickets put the cars in the vicinity of Taylor each time; when she had been shopping, out to dinner with a friend, visiting her parents and at the theater.

"Probable cause to get those cars fingerprinted, since those friends are your alibis, you jerk. I'll prove you're the one after her." He filled out the request for the warrants and closed the file with a smile. He glanced at the clock; ten minutes to one. He unwrapped the candy bar that Gibbs had left for him and thought about his first meeting with his enigmatic boss.

Baltimore had just about had it with Detective Anthony DiNozzo, he knew. He was on his way out the door there, permanently, when his case had crossed up with a government agency known as NCIS and a real bastard of a man named Gibbs. Tony hated him from the outset, the way the man took over his case as if he couldn't possibly be of any use. So Tony set out to prove Gibbs wrong.

Halfway through the investigation, Gibbs made a phone call. Tony would never forget the next words out of Gibbs' mouth as long as he lived. "DiNozzo! You belong to me now."

At first he tagged along with Gibbs' team, but he was treated with respect and he found he actually enjoyed working with the gruff man and his people. After they solved that case, Gibbs looked him square in the eye and gave him a choice. "I'll see you at eight a.m. sharp tomorrow morning, DiNozzo. Unless you want to go back to Baltimore, where you know you're not wanted."

Tony crumpled up the candy wrapper and tossed it expertly in the trashcan. He suddenly wondered if there was something for each of them in Gibbs' desk drawers. Was he the only one, or had Gibbs done something like that for each of the team? Known each of them well enough to know which drawer they would pick first, known what they would need from him? He almost got up to look, then stopped. For once he didn't feel the need to compete with his teammates.

For the first time in his life, Tony belonged. He belonged to Gibbs and the team; he belonged in this building and this agency. And that was really all that mattered.


End file.
